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News.com is reporting that the next version of Ubuntu will see KDE unsupported, but only for the time being. Because of the dramatic changeover from KDE 3.5 to 4.0, Ubuntu sponsor Canonical is unwilling to initially support the popular Linux GUI. Gnome will still be supported, and the company expects to return support to kubuntu soon. "Developer interest is focused on KDE 4.0, but it's not mature enough yet to use in the next KDE-based variation of Ubuntu, called Kubuntu, Scott James Remnant, leader of the Ubuntu Desktop team, said in an explanation to a Kubuntu mailing list. But most Kubuntu developers adding features "upstream" of today's products are focused on KDE 4.0, meaning that it's risky to release a long-term support version based on 3.5."

ubuntu wants to kick a release out the door every 6 months, i think it would be wise to release once a year and no more frequent than that, the rest of the Linux distros & community works at a slower pace than ubuntu wants to run at...

Any distro must make a choice of what to include or what not to include.

If it's critical software such as the kernel or compiler, the distro release is reasonably delayed. If it's not critical such as mtools, there's no need to wait.

With a desktop environment, it's somewhere in-between. If it is something most users depend on, then one would expect a reasonable delay. Obviously, maintainers of this distro don't believe that KDE users are in the majority and the distro can adhere to its release schedule and provide solid KDE4 support later. Good decision; not a problem.

However, making this NEWS implies there is something nefarious afoot and that alone should provide the usual morons who love to debate these things an opportunity to display their ignorance.

Personally I like Ubuntu's approach. IMHO Linux for the desktop can lose momentum very easily but Ubuntu seems to be keeping things rather stable. I have seen more improvements in Linux for the desktop since Ubuntu became popular than any time before. Perhaps it is just coincidence, perhaps not. Either way 6 months isn't an outrageously quick turn around time, I feel yearly releases would just cause everything to slow down.

I recently wrote a patch to fix a particularly egregious bug in Kopete 3.5 (the history search feature being totally and unnecessarily slow), and the response I got when I submitted the patch to the mailing list was that it would be pointless to apply it, they're not making any more releases of that branch. So there are people around to maintain stuff, but apparently nobody around to release it.

Doubtful, as an AC mentioned (in a much cruder way), Trolltech is not supporting QT3 any more... or at least not much longer since they are now at QT4. KDE3.x QT3 and KDE4 is programmed using QT4. At least that is how I understood things to be.

Bottom line is that KDE3.x likely is not really going to be supportable till 2011. But who knows? That is a long way away.

However your inference that LTS is of limited utility misses the point. 6.06 was chosen as the host platform for emc, precisely because by using 6.06, the emc developers were guaranteed a stable platform and could then concentrate on improving emc, and boy howdy have they ever. It is, I believe, the fastest moving development I've ever seen for an OS product in the field of computer numerical control software. It has gone from a somewhat twitchy & difficult to tune 3 axis milling machine driver to a stable 6 axis platform (9 is being discussed) capable of operating either a mill or a lathe. It can now bore a hole, then swap bits and thread both the bolt to fit that hole, and the hole itself on the milling machines table, I've done the threaded hole operation myself. Or to do the ornate carving in 3D of a beds headboard on a production line basis in a major high quality furniture makers factory.

When the next LTS comes out, emc will have to chose which of the realtime additions to the next kernel will be used, and adapt emc to live with it, and once done they can get back to the real project, that of making emc the accepted king of such applications. It is not far from that status now as commercial controllers are being ripped out, and emc put in their place to control machining centers as the older machines are being rebuilt, both due to wear in the machine, and bit rot in the controlling software which is no longer supported.

So the LTS versions do have a place in this world, very much so.

--Cheers, Gene"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."-Ed Howdershelt (Author)10.0 times 0.1 is hardly ever 1.0.